Religion and the Founding of the American Republic

It's a day after Resurrection Day (the day in which we celebrate Jesus' triumphant defeat over death by rising from the grave), so now it is time to resurrect an old but forgotten truth about the inception of our constitutional republic. Contrary to recent trends and attempts by secularists/atheists/humanists to separate the Christian faith from politics and civics, there is strong evidence that our early republic was influenced by the principles of Christianity. To prove it, I need only show one important link from our national archives that chronicles that point: Examples of Christianity Influencing Our Constitutional Government.

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"Resistance to tyranny becomes the Christian and social duty of each individual. ... Continue steadfast and, with a proper sense of your dependence on God, nobly defend those rights which heaven gave, and no man ought to take from us."
--History of the United States of America, Vol. II, p. 229.

Benjamin Franklin
Signer of the Declaration of Independence and Unites States Constitution

so dead set on making EVERYONE think the way they do? Didn't the pilgrims come here to get AWAY from religious persecution? Why are so many people on DP hounding the rest of us over THEIR beliefs so much lately?

We can 100% agree on that. I don't want some loony-toons christian trying to strip my rights through vote, as much as you don't want me sripping yours. I suggest our utter distate for one another's lifestyle is a fanstatic motivator to help us both work hard toward small, localized government coupled with enforcement of natural rights. That way neither of us can affect the other.

...see more posts antagonistic towards theism (Christianity, in particular) than antagonistic towards atheism. Frankly, I don't mind the challenge when I often hear that my faith is incompatible with Liberty -- it's a good test of one's ideas and ability to respond to others in Love and patience.

We aren't persecuting you. We are mocking you. Partially because we're tired of seeing 40 stupid christian threads pop up a day trying to give all the credit for our hard work and our founding father's vision to your stupid collectivist religeon.

But there are other reasons. This is one of the few times in world history(and it may not last long), where people like us can make fun of you without having to fear being thumb-screwed or burned to death. So we may as well take advantage of it while we can. If this whole liberty movement fails, it's only a matter of time before we're back to the dark ages and all the wonderful things your blood thirsty, brutal fucking religeon is so famous for. I don't care if you can cherry pick a few nice things from the bible to try and sell me on how nice Jesus is, reality is, your faith has been the tool for sadists and tyrants throught history, and it will be again if liberty fails.

Also, for me, its an interesting experament in brainwashing to watch you people dance around questions you're compartmentalized minds cannot handle be allowed to entertain without causing a collision between your human, rational mind and your primitive, brainwashed, faith-based mind:

Can god create a rock too heavy for him to lift up?

Why doesn't god heal amputees?

If taxes are coersion, why is hell "free will?"

If America was founded on Christian principals, how come the guy who wrote the Bill of Rights hated the Christian religeon with a passion and considered organized religeon to be enemy of liberty?

If America's founding was as a christian nation, why have religeous zealots been spending the last 200 years trying to make all the freedoms that the Constitution guaranteed us into crimes? Drugs? Prostitution? These things are fine according to the Constituation and Bill of Rights, but the christian right has been trying to shove their fucking book of lies into our rights since the beggining.

Pulling out the Beattitudes on me are you? You might note that Jesus isn't saying he's going to torture me for making fun of you? He's saying that you get to go to heaven for having to put up with all my mean words.

Its sorta like how I say beneign things to make my little girls feel better when their feelings are hurt.

Naturally your response to a series of questions your faith-based mind cannot handle is to threaten me with hell. Heck you didn't even make a sad attempt to answer them whilst dodging them, you just went straight for the throat.

Max, I don't fear make-believe firey relms. You won't scare me into submission. Im not some weak-minded serf who is going to bow down to a cosmic king because im so terrified of going to hell.

Its bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit.

Infact its worse, its sick and twisted sadistic evil. The fact that you believe im going to be tortured for all eternity for making fun or your stupid religeon... and you're okay with it, tells me exactly what sort of person buys into this medival peasant control.

Do you see me promising to light people on fire or torture them for talking shit about athiesm? Do you even understand how twisted and authoritarian that is? If some athiest came on and started treatening to break your knees for making fun of athiests, id tell him to go @#$% himself. If I was around and he tried to hurt you, id defend you.

People don't deserve to be tortured for expressing their opinions, or being rude. That crap only happens in the most brutal dictatorships run by sadistic megalomaniacs. What exactly does that say about your god? Id ask you to think about it, but you wont.

Yep, they sure did. Then when they got here they set up their own religious persecution by banishing people who didn't believe as they did. In some cases beating them, jailing them, and putting them in stocks to be publicly humiliated after they drove them off of their land. When that didn't work, they hung them or crushed them to death instead. Thus the reason the First Amendment was put into place so that those types of heinous behaviors wouldn't happen again.

At the time our founding documents were written, if you didn't profess to be Christian, you couldn't vote nor have a say in the governing of your town or country. You were forced into church or persecuted and often prosecuted. So, when you see where the Founders professed to be Christian, I'd take it with a grain of salt. I imagine some were truly, but many claimed it to avoid what was akin to the inquisition of the New World.

Most of the Constitutions of 1776 were very liberal in their definition of Christian, and included any denomination. For instance, the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776, signed in Philadelphia, and which Benjamin Franklin was president of, simply required that you believed in the Christian Bible - the old testament and new testament, to hold office.

Two, since many of the colonies in America where voluntary religious colonies to begin with, for instance John Hancock's father presided and was the preacher over one - where the War for Independence actually started - Lexington, it wasn't force, it's voluntary.

Christians still have the right to live apart from the unsaved. It was how the country was by in large originally established before the separation from England, and anyone reading the Holy Bible can see that in the end, that is how it has to be again. Sinners are separated from the Saints in heaven in the afterlife, and here on earth, there will also be a separation.

Here's hoping you don't miss that chance not to be eternally separated from the Lord.

—

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

I don't, in fact in a very real and deep sense, can't government with you being lost, but you aren't forced to be part of the government of the saved, and can try to form your own government with the damned if you want to. I wouldn't. I'd repent to Jesus Christ and ask to be saved.

If you insist I must government with you, that is force. It is also futile. Jesus Christ is King. He directly listens to and answers our prayers. It's a lot more than any worldly politician, who must hate us, after even many requests. God however, has been good to me and answered many of my prayers and blessed me. God is king.

I will only serve Jesus Christ. King of Kings, and Lord of Lords.

Revelation 21
22 And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it.

23 And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.

24 And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it.

25 And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there.

26 And they shall bring the glory and honour of the nations into it.

27 And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life.

—

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

They came here to escape the Government sponsored Church of England. It was a freedom movement to leave behind government controlled religion. I don't think anyone at the DailyPaul supports state run churches.

I am one of those "secularist/atheist/humanist" type people. I think you are completely missing the boat and thus, are arguing a strawman. You claim that I am trying to "separate" Christian faith from politics and that my position is that the founders were not influenced by the principles of Christianity.

That is a Strawman Fallacy. I, nor any other non-theist I have seen writing here or met in person, has ever made that claim. You have no one to counter - thus, you have built a "strawman".

I have disagree with posts on DP that Christianity is "solely" the motivation for the birth of our nation. I also disagree that some of the key figures (Jefferson, Franklin, Washington, etc...) were "Christian", at least as we define that today. I also think that Thomas Paine and the secular philosophy of the American Enlightenment might be the most important writing...ever. So, when someone on DP makes the absurd claim that Fundamentalist Christianity is the basis for our Declaration of Independence and Constitution, I must disagree - it just isn't accurate.

People like David Barton have muddied the waters a little with his made-up quotes and plagiarism. Media outlets like 700 Club and FOX News blur the lines, etc... And, just like the bulk of Christians in America, an overwhelming majority of non-theists are not awake or care and are part of the corporatist, ignore the Constitution, society we have. Why push away a few of the few that are on your side?

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"In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot."--Mark Twain

If you read my post carefully, I never said that the atheists/humanists/secularists ON THE DAILY PAUL try to separate the Christian Faith from politics. I was speaking of atheists/humanists/secularists in general. In my experience (not just here on Daily Paul), those group of people do, in fact, tell Christians that they are not allowed to have their beliefs influence public policy. So, my post is NOT a strawman fallacy. You just need to calm down and read carefully.

One of the things which can be easily seen from studying how our constitutional republic was established is that religion was infused as a good ingredient to stabilizing the well-being of an orderly government. The self-evident truth amongst all of the Founding Fathers was that the Creator, not only existed, but He made Himself known to mankind through creation and special revelation (the Bible). That point has almost been airbrushed out by secular revisionists, but my original link as well as subsequent ones will show that the Christian religion was the primary resource in creating the structure of our republic. For example, the esyablishment of our three branches of government came from Isaiah 33:22, which reads, "For the LORD is our Judge [judicial branch]; the LORD is our Lawgiver [legislative branch]; the LORD is our King [executive branch]. He will save us."

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